The Hightower Affair. Copyright © 2017 Ella Drake.
All rights reserved.

* * *

The straggly-haired girl splashed through a puddle of black water and disappeared into a crowd of tech tower workers, all heads down and avoiding attention. Zetter flicked his drenched felt hat with one finger, leaned forward out of his slouch, and squinted through the haze.

“All citizens with official access to Lower Quarters may depart,” blared the external speaker of an auto-bus. Lights dulled by fog in front of the solid bullet shaped craft, it zipped by without slowing. Nobody ever got off in his hood, the official cesspit and thruway from the burbs to the tech towers. Nobody wanted a stop in Lowquat on record.

The girl shouldn’t be here.

He shrugged and tipped the brim of his hat back down. She’d disappeared into the shadows, and he didn’t have time to worry about anyone with no sense of self preservation. Time, he had. And plenty of it, but time to worry wasn’t in his schedule. Hadn’t been for quite a while, if ever.

The humid, stifling air of his flat had sent him out into the alley despite the constant drizzle that dripped from his hat. Hunching down into his coat, he huffed a sigh and tried to go back to sleep in his lounge chair, three stories up on a small five-by-five balcony. High enough to stay away from the gangs.

A splash below brought him out of a near doze. He slowly reached for the bat propped to the side of the open door. Baseball was a long dead sport, but bats still had their place in Lowquat. Fun for all.

A soft rapping sounded over the rain. Gangs didn’t knock. Nobody knocked on his door. His knuckles tightened around the bat until his hand hurt. He spun inside and through his small, barren flat. With a complete certainty, he knew it was the girl, and she was exposed out there.

In the gloom, he unerringly whirled the locks open, slung the door wide, and yanked the small framed female inside.

“Wha—” A breathy exclamation heated across his cheek.

Nearly recoiling, he pressed his arm against her neck, shoved her against the wall, and slammed the door. When the lock whirred into place, he stepped back as far as he could, relieved his hat and jacket hid the tension slamming through him and the grimace pulling his mouth down.

“What are you doing here?” he snarled and tapped the bat against his leg.

Silently, she shifted between the wall and his arm. The darkness receded for a brief moment with a thrill of light glancing along her form. The cits could never hide. The vanity of their implants traced their skin with designer comp weaves and meshes. They flaunted the tech that gave them away. Made them slaves to the drudge. Their skin was covered with the network that bound them all together in one compliant, malleable group. When agitated, the comps whirred to life, sending signals for help, analyzing escape routes, and sending a plainly lit map, a taunt to the predators: Here I am, come get me.

What did she have? Flowers and little swirls? Maybe a vintage high-priced design reminiscent of ancient tribal tattoos? The long extinct butterfly?

“I’m looking for Zetter Kohl,” she whispered so low he almost missed it.

“Who’s looking?” he growled in a menacing tone he couldn’t hide. He didn’t want a cit in his flat. Christ. He didn’t want one in Lowquat. Gangs, he understood, and had lived his life with a healthy respect for the Faction. Cits, he didn’t understand at all—had never understood what still brought Bernie here after all this time—and when they came into this underbelly of depravity, they just caused trouble. Bernie, case in point. This girl was trouble, and she still hadn’t answered his question as she shivered against his arm. “Well. Tell me girl.”

“Celeste,” she murmured.

The name sent his senses on alert. Celeste, an angelic name for a citizen whose face was as angelic, though he could only go by his faulty memory since he couldn’t see her in the gloom. “You have to leave.”

“Wait. I need help. I asked around and …” She leaned against the wall and a streak of light lit the space between them in soft blue. “You were the only name to come up.”

He snarled what he wished wasn’t a lie, “I don’t work for cits.”

She flinched and the light dimmed.

His snarling got to her. Tough. He held her pinned to the wall until the effort strained across his shoulders. She was slight, too little to cause him trouble if he had to restrain her, or throw her out. Lowering his arm, he backed away but still loomed over her. The top of her head didn’t even reach his chin.

She sure was taking her time stating her business.

“Get it out girl, so I can show you the door.” He might not want jobs from cits, but he’d hear her out. He’d been called rude and curt, but he let people speak their mind before he showed them how wrong they were. Especially her. After all, he owed Bernie, always would, but he didn’t owe Bernie’s former assistant.

“My brother.” She took a shuddering breath and her body shook so much he could see her shadow vibrate in the darkness. “You’ve heard of the citizens who are disappearing. The news and the investigators are saying they’re rebels, throwing off their weaves. But…” A thin arm raised and she covered her mouth, muffling a sob.

“Christ,” he muttered. The disappearing cits were not deciding to cast off their plush lives and coming to live here. He knew that. But cits ate up the lies so they could sleep at night. With a gentle nudge on her shoulder, he guided her from the wall to sit on the sofa, his lone piece of furniture in the main room. He sat beside her, careful to leave space between them. “Spit it out. The words won’t hurt you.”

She brought her legs up onto the sofa and hugged them, making a small ball next to him, as if he could huddle over her and protect her from the world.

“Christ,” he spat and moved to the end of the sofa, as far as possible from her.

“A man is stealing weaves.” She spoke into her knees. He leaned back toward her a small fraction. She rushed out the next. “He’s a citizen. The council doesn’t want people to know they have a citizen gone mad. I’ve seen pictures of what he’s left behind. And now my brother is missing.” She hiccupped. “Councilman Hightower sent me to you. He said you’d find my brother.”

The puzzle whirled in his mind. Possibilities and certainties. The absolute truth of what she said left a bitter taste in his mouth. Something big went on in the city. He should get her the hell out of his flat, but Bernie sent her. He didn’t have a choice but to listen, at least. Sure, his policy was to stay away from cits. They were pretty much what was wrong in the world. But he couldn’t ignore Bernie, or her—though she wouldn’t understand why.

Zetter had believed the news that the dozen missing citizens from the wealthiest of families were deciding to turn breeder. After all, he’d be one of the first to know it happened—except those cits didn’t walk away without a trace. He never should have believed the story about the disappearances. Disgusting that he’d bought the fodder. A cit wouldn’t give up the security of what he’d have, what he’d known, his entire life. Or would he? Bernie dipped into the breeder pool on a regular basis. Then there was Zetter’s father. “All right. I want six hundred nikoels a day plus expenses.”

The flosverants flickered on in the kitchen as the last of the sun’s muted rays disappeared.

Celeste jerked her head up, into the light, and stole his breath. Her face was a familiar visitor in his dreams, but the reality was so much more.

She was an angel, dark and pale, and stunning. Smudges marred the perfection beneath her wide, nearly black eyes. Wet long hair clung to her face, high cheekbones and full lips. Her life-weaves sparkled silver on her chest above a sheer, pink blouse that plunged down between small, pert breasts with hardened nipples. His mouth watered and as he stared, the lights in her weave pulsed, a rapid fluttering along the swirls and vines of a design he couldn’t quite make out on her slender frame as it disappeared beneath her clothes.